Did Jesus Descend into Hades?

History and Theology, Again

This will be the penultimate entry in my series on “History and Theology,” surrounding the Church’s kerygma of Jesus as it stand between historical criticism and Christian theology; the next and final entry will be on Pentecost. I will not touch the resurrection again, which I have already written on several times (I invite the reader to just do a search for “resurrection” in the search bar above) and on which I might well have more to say in the future as my own thoughts and interests continue to evolve. It’s also not the case that I’ll never talk about historical Jesus stuff again, though whenever I do so in the future it’s likely to be more specific and nuanced, and perhaps in dialogue with publications, rather than in this format. My goal in these posts has mainly been to outline a method for doing history and theology on the life of Jesus in a way that respects the integrity of each discipline without compromise while also putting them into dialogue with one another, and to invite the reader to see how the findings of historical criticism on the life of Jesus can, rather than merely being destructive for faith in Jesus, actually provide new and interesting content for theological consideration.